Distribution of emm types in invasive and non-invasive group A and G streptococci

Abstract

Our study describes the emm type distributions of invasive and non-invasive group A streptococci (GAS) and group G streptococci (GGS) strains in one of the biggest Health Districts in Finland. A total of 571 GAS or GGS were recovered from patients with invasive or non-invasive infections during a 1-year period in 2008-2009 in Pirkanmaa Health District in Finland. We describe here the emm type distributions of GAS and GGS collected from throat (n = 246), pus (n = 217), deep tissue (n = 56) and blood (n = 52). The most common emm types among GAS were emm77, emm1, emm28, emm89 and emm12. Among GGS, the most common emm types were stG480, stG643, stG6, stC6979 and stG485. Some emm types were found to associate with certain infection focus. In GAS, emm77 associated with pus isolates, whereas emm1 and emm12 were more frequent among throat isolates. In GGS, stG480 was more commonly found from throat isolates.